LAKE PLACID, N.Y. — Joshua Karnish scored with 7:55 remaining in the third period to break a 2-2 tie and lift fourth-seeded Princeton to a 3-2 victory over third-seeded Cornell at the 1980 Rink — Herb Brooks Arena on Friday night.

Karnish buried a rebound on the edge of Cornell's crease to send the Tigers (18-12-3) to the ECAC Hockey Championship game for the first time since 2018, when Princeton last won the Whitelaw Cup with a similar upset of the Big Red (22-10-1), who were ranked second at the time.

"They had urgency. We lacked it," said Casey Jones '90, the Jay R. Bloom '77 Head Coach of Cornell Men's Ice Hockey. "They just seemed to want it more than us tonight. It was pretty apparent."

David Jacobs and Julian Facchinelli also scored for Princeton, and Kai Daniells added two assists for the only multi-point performance of the night for the Tigers.

Junior forward Ryan Walsh had a goal and an assist and junior defenseman George Fegaras also tallied a goal for the eighth-ranked Big Red (22-10-1), who had its aspirations of claiming the Whitelaw Cup for a third consecutive season halted.

Arthur Smith stopped 21 shots for Princeton, and freshman Alexis Cournoyer also made 21 saves for Cornell.

Fegaras gave Cornell the early lead when his shot from the top of the faceoff circle snuck through Smith's five-hole 2:32 into the first period.

Princeton seized control in the second, with Jacobs redirecting a point shot by Ian Devlin just 2:34 into the period before Facchinelli beat Cournoyer to his short side with a burst of speed at the offensive blue line following a Tigers faceoff win in the neutral zone.

Cornell was outshot 10-1 over the first 16 minutes of the period, but a Princeton penalty gave the Big Red life. Walsh batted a loose rebound of a Hoyt Stanley shot on the edge of the crease with 2:47 left for his 10th goal of the season — his sixth on the power play — to pull even at 2-2.

"We had a couple good shifts in a row, ended up drawing a penalty, scoring on the power play," Walsh said. "I thought we had it going in the second period."

Defenseman Nick Marciano twice came close to putting Princeton ahead in the third. Senior defenseman Jack O'Brien blocked a Marciano shot at the left post with Cournoyer out of his net just past the eight-minute mark, and another attempt rang off the right post two minutes later before Karnish finally broke through.

Cornell pressed in the final minutes in search of the equalizer, outshooting Princeton 12-0 over the final eight minutes, but Smith turned aside all three shots on net to secure the win. Princeton blocked five of the other nine attempts.

"One of our strengths is we can skate and they were beating us up ice a lot," Jones said. "We talk about being a really good transitional team. Well, part of being a good transitional team is going from offense to defense. And we were poor with that tonight."

POSTGAME COMMENTS FROM CASEY JONES '90 AND RYAN WALSH


GAME NOTES
• Cornell suffered its second consecutive loss to Princeton, marking the first time the Tigers have beaten the Big Red in successive matchups since posting victories of 5-3 (Nov. 9, 2012) and 1-0 (Feb. 9, 2013) to conclude a three-game unbeaten streak over Cornell (2-0-1). The Big Red continues to hold the lead in the all-time series, 103-56-8.
 
• With his first-period goal, Fegaras now has points in seven of his last eight games, while increasing his point total to 16 since the new year (5-11—16).
 
• The Big Red suffered its third loss when scoring multiple goals this season (22-3-0) and is 1-7-0 when allowing three or more goals.
 
UP NEXT
Cornell will have find out on Sunday, March 22, to see if it gets selected for this year's NCAA Division I Men's Hockey Championship. If chosen, the Big Red would compete in one of four regional semifinals on either Thursday, March 26 (Worcester, Mass., or Sioux Falls, S.D.) or Friday, March 27 (Albany, N.Y., or Loveland, Colo.). All games will be streamed live on ESPN+ and broadcast on select ESPN channels.

"You look at some of our best games have been after we've been taught hard lessons. We're going to use a hard lesson here, use it to motivate us," he said, "and hopefully propel us for what's coming ahead."

If selected, Cornell will be appearing in the NCAA Division I Men's Hockey Championship for the fourth consecutive season, matching a program record previously set between 1967 and 1970.